Tottel sig. Bbiiiir

A Man may liue thrise Nestors life, Thrise wander out Ulisses race: Yet neuer finde Ulisses wife. +Penelope, see glossary Such change hath chanced in this case. (5) Lesse agetime will serue than Paris had, Small peinpain (if none be small inough) To finde good store of Helenes trade. +Prostitution, see Helen in glossary Such sap the rote doth yelde the bough. For one good wife Ulisses slew (10) A worthy knot of gentle blood: For one yll wife Grece ouerthrew The towne of Troy: Sithsince bad and good Bring mischief: Lord let be thy will, To kepe me free from either yll.

An answer. +See also, ‘Against women, either good or bad’. * Author: possibly also by Thomas Norton , or by an associate. Structure: 17: 2×5 ababb, 1×7 ababccc8

T He vertue of Ulisses wife +Penelope, see glossary Doth liue, though she hath ceast her race, +Lines 1-2: ‘A man … race’: imitated by Timothy Kendall, Flowers of Epigrams (1577): ‘Then, then, full often wouldst thou wishe/ thrice Nestors yeares to liue’ (fol. 20v); and Melbancke, Philotimus (1583): ‘A man may liue thrice Nestors yeares, thrice wander out Vlisses race, ere he gaine that by seruice, that sometime hath bene a common pencion’ (p. 30). And farre surmountes old Nestors life: But now in moemore than then it was. (5) Such change is chancedhas happened in this case. Ladies now liue in other trade: Farre other Helenes now we see, Than she whom Troyan Paris had. +There are now far more ‘Helens’, i.e., prostitutes than the original Helen’ (with the implication that the majority of women, ‘ladies’, are virtuous). As vertue fedes the roote, so be (10) The sap and rote of bough and tye. Ulisses rage, not his good wife, Spilt gentle blood. Not Helenes face, But Paris eye did raise the strife, That did the Troyan buildyng raceraze . (15) Thus sithsince neno good, nenor bad do yll: Them all, O Lord maintain my wyll, To serue with all my force and skill.

Against a gentil woman by whom he was refused. +See ‘The answer’ *. For other examples of such complaints and answers, see ‘A careless man, scorning and describing, the subtle usage of women toward their lovers’ *, ‘An answer in the behalf of a woman of an uncertain author’. * Author: unattributed. Structure: 30: 5×6 ababcc8